1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a highly convenient communication method in a communication network capable of transmitting arbitrary data including a motion picture, a communication service apparatus providing such communication, a communication terminal device for performing such communication and a communication system as such.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the progress of communication technology and various data processing technologies including coding technology or the like, a portable terminal device has been developed, which is capable of processing a great amount of data such as a motion picture. It may be considered that such communication terminal device as capable of processing a real-time motion picture (hereinafter called “live picture”, in some cases) will practically come into wide use when a shortly scheduled broadband communication network begins to be utilized. Additionally, as one of the devices which widely prevail among such communication terminal devices, there is considered the communication terminal device in the form of a videophone which is so far being put to practical use in various systems, namely, a portable communication terminal device capable of mutually transmitting live pictures.
However, as has been the case with the hitherto videophone, against such the communication terminal device, an attention has up to now been paid only to transmitting a live image, in other words, it has been positioned, in most cases, as a dedicated device for transmitting live image. For instance, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-172611 discloses a technology that displays the image of WWW browser in a separate window within the videophone monitor, while calling with the videophones among multipoint. It also discloses the technology regarding the videophone system which includes a videophone device, a multipoint connecting device for controlling a videophone conference connected multipoint and a browser-coupled switching means which notifies as data the other videophone device via the above multipoint connecting device of the files as data which the videophone device downloads from a WWW server. However, this notifying data is notified to all the other connected videophones with the same content, and it is not such that data is notified after selected individually and separately.
As a consequence, a function as a communication means has not been sufficient and effective communication has not been performed. More specifically, there has been problems that adaptability when a user does not want to transmit, for instance, the live picture is insufficient, in addition to difficulty to use.
Moreover, data processing capability that permits real-time transmission of the moving image has not been utilized except for transmission of the live image. Therefore, there has been a demand to provide such a high value-added communication terminal device that more effectively utilizes such data processing capability.